


orð

by aresentfulcaretaker



Category: Hannibal (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 11:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12231624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aresentfulcaretaker/pseuds/aresentfulcaretaker
Summary: ficlets





	1. álfatrú

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _belief in fairies_

Will gets hot cocoa and a pork sandwich. The meat is stacked high; cut from a pig on a spit, turning over an open flame. He sits in front of the shops to eat, people watching with passive interest. He's still sipping his cocoa when he steps back out into the market.

It teems with life. He stops at a stall selling pastries, buys fresh bread at another, then a whole chicken. One vendor manages to sell him spices he's never heard of while another reminds him how much his spouse loved their produce.

When his arms begin to ache from the weight of his purchases and his hot cocoa is gone, he decides it's time to head home.

It's a nice walk. The roads slope and curve, trees peek out from over the walls that line the residential yards and provide patches of shade. Will doesn't mind the sun though, gentle and warm as it is this afternoon.

The gate creaks when it's opened. He makes a mental note to pick up oil as he walks up the path. The lawn is a vibrant green. Well tended flowers overflow from the plots in front of the house and the boxes hung from the windows. Hannibal's doing; he has quite the green thumb.

Will drops his keys into the dish by the door and heads for the kitchen. He sets the bags on the table and spots Hannibal through the window above the sink, out on the porch sketching.

The page is mostly blank, all the lines drawn light in pencil. He's only just begun to add detail. From what Will can tell, it's an aerial shot of the ground where a ring of mushrooms and flowers has grown.

"A fairy ring?" Will asks.

"There's one growing in the yard."

"What are you putting at the center?"

"A girl." Hannibal sits back, surveys his work, and sets his pencil aside. Will has his full attention.

"Any girl in particular?"

"My sister, as I last remember her whole."

Will frowns. "I thought you said - "

"She died in a cabin in the dead of winter, yes. The memory is not true. It was the invention of a child trying to cope."

"That doesn't seem like you."

"I never believed it, even as I constructed it. Even as I dreamed it."

A beat of silence passes. Will pulls out a chair at the table, pushes it closer to Hannibal's, and sits down.

"Tell me more."

"You will see when I finish."

"I will. But I want to hear it. Now, from you." Will rests his head on Hannibal's shoulder. "Tell me more."

"I imagined she disappeared in the summer. I'd taken her out into the woods with me and left her playing. There were plenty of flowers for her to pick." His head falls to rest atop Will's. "I turned my back and she was gone."

"Where'd you find her?"

"Where I'd left her, days later. She was lying on the ground with her back to me, lifeless. She had a pulse but she'd been hollowed out."

Will smooths a hand down Hannibal's forearm and intertwines their fingers. "Fairies took her? Stole her away when she stepped into their ring?"

"Something like that."

They shift. Will dozes in his chair as Hannibal resumes drawing. The afternoon turns to a rosy dusk, all pinks and purples. They fix (Hannibal fixes, Will watches him fix) dinner with the ingredients from the market. They turn in early, before the last traces of light have left the sky.

"Did you believe in fairies as a child?" Will asks, brushing hair from Hannibal's forehead. They're close, face to face in the half light of their bedroom.

"I believed in very little, even then."

Will can see, over Hannibal's shoulder, the drawing on the desk, stark white against the stained wood. As he slips off to sleep, he dreams that he holds it in his hands. Mischa is no longer alone; Hannibal is curled around her. They are lifeless but together.


	2. selslíki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _the shape of a seal_

"Is this why you asked me out here?" Galahad pulls his furs up close to his face. Tristan sits crosslegged beside him. "To catch my death of a cold?"

"You can go back to camp if you'd like."

Galahad frowns. "What were you going to show me?"

"It may not work." He runs a finger along the edge of the rock they're sitting on. A chunk comes loose and he skips it with a flick of his wrist. 

"That's the same thing you said at target practice last week. Unlike Bors, I'm not foolish enough to believe you."

Tristan smiles a small, pleased sort of smile remembering his victory. Bors' newest knife hangs from his belt, won on the wager Tristan's self strung bow couldn't shoot as true as the ones that had been made for him. 

"So come on then." Galahad says. "Let's see it."

The wind picks up and a few waves crash against the stone beneath them. Tristan turns his palms up and drops his head, eyes closing. When they open again they're black, his pupils blown out wide. Another splash from the sea and a baby grey seal is sitting between them, its eyes the color of Tristan's. 

"Are you - " Galahad looks between the two. "Are you controlling him?"

"Just barely.

Careful and cautious, Galahad holds out his hand to the seal. It licks him, making him cry out in shock. Tristan laughs. 

"Is this how you get your bird to come back?"

"I trained her as any man could."

"But you're not a man. You're a mage."


End file.
